If money is not problem for you, this could be averry useful option....and way expensive (for me)

http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Ite...1000&tp=526

 

Damn Redz. Ill look tonight at those.

 

Ericy, did you ever get a carpc installed? Rix told me that someone was looking to start on one and that is ... um... my specialty. I've been running a self built/designed setup in the back of the Santa Fe for over 3 years now. A full board gives you more flexibility than a laptop, and the ability to use a 12V power supply with a shutdown controller that turns the rig on when you turn on your car and throws it into either standby/hibernate or shutdown depending on what you want.

 

Not yet. Ive been researching a ton. I am just going to do a full setup from the start rather than using a laptop and wanting to upgrade later. I found a full kit that really sounds great to me for about 800. I could get it a bit cheaper Im sure. I just dont have the money for it at the time. Would love to spend less but with the front end and wireless stuff it seems like price shoots up quick. Any insight would be great though.

 

Well, the first thing I will tell you is that the front end shouldn't cost you dime. I saw the Centrafuse banner, but I will recommend RoadRunner or FreeICE. Both of them are absolutely free. Roadrunner is easier to design for as long as you can use photoshop. FreeICE is a little more difficult as it's based in flash. Both are customizable to your needs. Here is a copy of my RR skin (which is colour matched to mine and Rix's paint schemes.) The really dark one is the night version to cut down on any excess light bleed in the cabin. And the reason the shapes look elongated is to compensate for the 16x9 screens.




And here is the setup itself. The PC is a dual monitor stacked setup. The top screen is the touchscreen which controls everything, the bottom shows track information and speed gauges. All of the other monitors also run off the bottom monitor so the video images from the pc are displayed on all of the headrest and visor monitors.


I'm also working on a GPS working a bunch of British guys. (Also free... technically) It's based off of a PC demo version of a PDA nav program called iGO8. Full 3d nav including topography.

For hardware, I am running a foxconn mobo, P4 2.4 processor, 1gb ram, 80gb HDD, Opus 250W DC-DC powersupply, D-link wireless card, ATI 9250se low profile agp card, holux gr-213 GPS receiver (whatever you get, make sure that it has the SIRFStarIII chipset or later), lilliput Touchscreen, and a soundblaster 24bit External USB card.

Lemme know what questions you have, and I'll help you out.

 

wow that is sick!!

how much to send you over to South Dakota and hook me up lmao.gif

i want to see yours when you get it done ericy, that looks awesome!

 

That is beyond sick! Great work!

Can you show a few pics of the gauges working, and what software and interface are you using to the pc to get gauge info?

 

Looks great man. Dont wanna get into the whole two monitors but Im hoping to have a good setup.

Here is where I need specific help. I need a good sound card that will sound just like a good radio. I dont care about fm as much but want XM and CD/MP3. Issues with the sound is I have an amp for front speakers, an amp for the rear, then a big one for the subs. I need a card with outputs to support that.

Here is the system I was looking at. Everything is new and its 800obo so I could probably get it for 700 I would think: Any inputs are great.

* AOpen Digital Engine DE-945FX Barebone System
-----Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz
-----Memory:Barebone 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2-5300 RAM
-----Accessories:Aopen Power Pac
-----Hard Drive BBN:120GB SATA
-----Optical Driveanasonic UJ-85J-B Slim Slot load DVD±R/±RW/+RDL/RAM Multi Drive
-----Bluetooth:Linksys USB Bluetooth
-----Microphone:Andrea Electronics Superbeam Array Microphone Bundle
-----Price I Paid: $1027.82
* Lilliput 8" Widescreen (16:9) VGA Touchscreen 889GL-80NP/C/T
-----Price I Paid: $268.00
* 4-port USB 2.0 Hub
-----Price I Paid: $25.98
* BU-353 Weather-proof GPS Receiver
-----Price I Paid: $69.99
* Griffin Powermate Volume Knob
-----Price I Paid: $45.00
* ElmScan 5 USB OBD-II Scan Tool
-----Price I Paid: $129.95
* Double Din Bolt in kit Without Touchscreen
-----Price I Paid: $139.99
* Centrafuse XLE Navigation / Phone Edition
-----Price I Paid: $299.00
* Linsys 802.11 b/g/n USB Wireless
-----Price I Paid: $79.99

 

That is a really good, pretty high end system. If you can afford that, it will rock! That said, if you want to go cheaper, you don't *need* all that processing power (something like a cheaper pentium M would do the job too, and 1 Gb of RAM should be enough).

About the soundcard - most (all?) mainboards these days have AC'97. Which means they support at least 5.1. The board will have three audio jacks, and with the correct driver you can set one jack to be the fronts, one the backs, and one the sub(s). You can use jacks-to-rca cables or adapters. So the onboard sound is enough, BUT it might be a little noisy (depends on the board).

About the frontends: I didn't like Roadrunner at all, it has some issues.. It doesn't even have its own mp3 player, it opens up winamp and controls it (what's up with that?)

The Centrafuse frontend is really good, I'm actually thinking of buying it. It works smoothly and the skin it comes with looks really nice and is very well designed IMO

 

I really like the Centrafuse and it seems real popular. I think it would work well. That seems like a good setup to me but I still have much to learn.